I found a new blog that I added to my list of subscriptions today - Neuromarketing - Where Brain Science and Marketing Meet. It provides some unique perspectives on marketing that I love. For example, Roger Dooley wrote an interesting post about the cultural differences in eye tracking that were found in a study published this week in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
The study found that East Asian respondents process images very differently from North American respondents. Using a combination of eye tracking and traditional survey methods and a photo that included a single person in the foreground and four people in the background, it was determined that Asian respondents pay more attention to the background in images while North American respondents pay more attention to the principal character in the foreground of images.
Specifically, nearly 75% of Japanese respondents said they were influenced by the emotions of the people in the background of the picture, while nearly 75% of North American respondents said the people in the background of the picture didn't affect them at all.
Furthermore, eye tracking results in the study showed that the gazes of Japanese respondents focused quickly on the background of the photo while North American respondents' fixated quickly on the central subject of the photo.
These findings are so interesting. As marketers, we spend so much time making sure our messages and overall images appeal to international audiences (when appropriate), but how often do we consider how consumers process those images, meaning what do they look at first and does it differ culturally?
Turns out, image processing should be an important part of our consumer profiles and should play a role in our marketing and advertising creative strategies.
What do you think?
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